What The Ale?
32. Amelia Earhart aka the Babe of the Sky
ghosts, cryptids, murder, conspiracies, beer, what, the ale. Hello friends! Hello! Welcome back to What the Ale. I'm Elana Ray. And I'm Mama Jay. Before we get into our topic, Mama, I just wanted to see if you have any What the Ale Moments for this week. Well, I think I was looking at my calendar today, and I think my What the Ale Moment is that I was realizing that this weekend while we're at a soccer tournament in Vegas, it will probably be the last time you and me and the other two kids are all together. Like for a weekend, like to enjoy a little trip together before you go back to Boston. And I was like, "That's weird, it's weird that it's going so fast." Yeah, this process is going very, very fast. Even in the span of 24 hours, I feel like my life changes enough where I'm like, "Whoa, that just happened." Yeah. So that weren't marked though, because I may steal you for a happy hour cribbage game when we're at the hotel at some point. Oh, yeah, I'm sure that's fine. We can figure that out or he'll go do something and we'll do something. It'll be fine. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's kind of one of my What the Ale Moments. I think another one is that I was just in Arizona this weekend, and I took my grandpa to see the Arizona Coyotes, and for those of you who aren't familiar with hockey, the Coyotes are notoriously bad, and we won four to zero. Wow. That's great. That's the grandpa's probably thrilled. Yeah. We were thrilled. We had a great time. We saw a lot of really great saves, because we were kind of towards the end, so we saw a lot of great saves. And they won. They beat the Red Wings, which is crazy, because Detroit's really good. Oh, yeah. Yeah. We were happy. We had a really good time. I bought a beanie. Oh, nice. So I'm glad you guys could enjoy that together. Yeah. Um, speaking of things to enjoy together, Mama, what are you drinking? Well, I have to drive a child home from a rehearsal tonight. So I am drinking a Dr. Puffer. How about you? I'm having some apothec Red, because my sweetie and I were, we opened a bottle of wine yesterday when I got back from Arizona, and so we decided to finish it tonight. So. Okay. Yeah. Having some apothec. Very nice. Um, what do you got for us? Well, I am ready to bring you all a wonderful story. Um, I don't know about you all, but I really love a disappearance. Oh, yeah. And I have famous disappearance that everyone kind of speculates on and has crazy, crazy theories for. So, mom, I want to ask you, do you have a guess as to who I'm covering? Uh, give me two more hints. Um, let's see. She is someone who was a champion for women and stuff. She's a real icon for women. Um, and people call her the babe of the sky. Oh, and did somebody happen to play her and snatch game this season? Someone did happen to play her and snatch game this season. Okay. So it's Miss Amelia Earhart for anybody that doesn't watch Drag Race. Snatch game, there was Amelia Earhart this season. There was. Um, so I kind of didn't want to do a murder, but I also wanted to do a fun little conspiracy vibe. And since it's International Women's Month and all the things, I figured this would be a good topic. So let's get into it. So Miss Amelia was born July 24th of 1897. She was a self-proclaimed tomboy. She climbed trees as a kid. She used to hunt rats with a 22 caliber rifle. And something that I think is really adorable is that she would save news clippings of women doing thing, like important things and male dominated fields. So if like someone invented something, she like, so people like say she had all these news clippings and like a little journal that she would keep of successful women doing cool things. Yeah. And at the age of 10 was the first time she saw a plane, and she was not at all impressed. She even said it was a thing of rusty wire and wood, not at all interesting. Really? Yeah. Yeah. But she graduated high school and she went to the argon's finishing school in Philadelphia. But she actually left to work as a nurses aide in World War One and she was stationed in Canada. Oh wow. So good for her, fighting the good fight, doing the things. At that point, she went to college and became a social worker at the Denison House, which was a settlement house in Boston. I'm not sure if that was for kids or for adults, but still good on her being a social worker. And like, again, this is like in the 1920s. So a woman doing that is truly amazing to me at that time, going to college and things. And around 20 years old, she went to a stunt flying exhibition. And that's kind of when she became interested in aviation. And the story goes that there was a pilot who was flying and doing like trick, like drops where he would like kind of death drop towards the ground and like pull up really quickly. Okay. And saw Amelia and her friend is sitting alone in a field. So he decided to scare them by dying at them. And Amelia said she knew the pilot was trying to make her scamper, but she really loved the adrenaline rush and like played chicken and he actually pulled up before she moved. So at that point, she went on a plane on December 28th of 1920, and she took a ride with Frank Hawks. And at that point, she said she knew she had to fly. So in January of 1921, she took her first flying lesson. And in six months, she saved enough money to buy a secondhand kinner airster, which is a two-seater biplane and it was yellow. So she called it the canary for all nice. And that's cute. Yeah. I thought that was cute. And at the time, she was the first woman to fly up to 14,000 feet. So she's already making goals, hitting goals. So a few years later, in April of 1928, she got a phone call to be the first woman to fly the Atlantic. So on June 27th of '28, she flew from trapezy harbor in Newfoundland and arrived in Burrey Perth, Wales, 21 hours later. And something to note is that three pilots earlier that year had died trying to be the first woman to make that flight. So that is a flight really at the time was very dangerous. Now it's pretty standard, but at the time, very dangerous. I didn't even realize that was a thing that other people had tried and died. Yeah. I'm not sure who all tried. I mean, I know Bessie Coleman was around at the time, but I don't know. It didn't say who I really should have checked. Okay. Yeah, but I didn't realize that was a thing. That's pretty cool that there were multiple women trying. Yeah. So after she got back to New York, they had a ticker tape parade for her. And she actually attended a reception that was held by President Coolidge in the White House. So Frankie, I know. So then she later placed third in the Cleveland Women's Air Derby. Around this time, she married a man named George Putnam. And they had actually met while prepping for her transatlantic flight. And something that I love about her again, feminism woo woo is that she referred to her marriage as a partnership with dual control. And it sounds like he really wanted her to do what made her happy and was a great husband. So I want to give that note at the moment. Wow. Dual control. That's I haven't heard it worded that way, but you know, nowadays we always talk about equal partnerships and fair division of duties and stuff like that. So that's cool that even way back when she was like, Oh, no, we're an equal partnership. Yeah. And this was what in like 1930 31. So yeah, you're early for women to be saying things like that. That's very cool. So then on May 20 of 1932, which was five years to the day after Lindbergh made his famous flight, she became the first woman to life solo over the Atlantic and also made her the second person ever to do it. So her and Lindbergh went to at this point that made that flight. And so she flew from Newfoundland to Paris. And I just want to say this flight really shows her brilliance as a pilot. So there were strong North winds, there was icy conditions. There were mechanical problems, including a cracked manifold and the flight, the plane caught on fire. Oh my gosh. And she actually had to make an emergency landing in London, Derry, Ireland before completing the flight to Paris. So I just want to make it clear like she is a badass and an amazing pilot and most pilots, even today, probably going to handle a fire plane. So I want to give her that do. Well, I was going to say, I mean, a lot of people would probably just like freak out and you know, we tend to not make good choices when we're freaked out. So for her to keep a cool head and know what she needs to do to stay safe and get on the ground and everything that's like pretty impressive just because it's so stressful. Yeah. And so after this flight, she was awarded the flying cross making her the first recipient that was a woman and she was also awarded a gold medal from the National Geographic Society by President Hoover. So this flight obviously again in general is history and groundbreaking, but it's really cool that she got her due at that point. So then in January of 1935, she became the first person to fly solo across the Pacific from Honolulu to Oakland, California and then later that year, she was also the first person to fly solo from Mexico City to Newark, New Jersey. So again, she's already kind of testing the waters and like, I want to, you know, be the first to do all these cool things. So in 1937, she was getting a little close to 40 and she was like, I want to be the first woman to fly around the world. And she had actually attempted this earlier that year in March, but it actually did not work. And she had to rebuild her twin engine Electra because there was so much damage to the plane. So she even before the flight was noted saying that she felt there was one more good flight in her system and she hoped this trip was it before she took off. So June 1st of 1937, her and her navigator, Fred Noonan, departed from Miami to become a 29,000 mile journey around the world. Wow. By June 29th, all but 7,000 miles were completed. So they were in Asia and something that. And they were supposed to come back around to where they started? Yeah, they were supposed to go in a big circle. Okay. Yeah. So there were a few challenges throughout the journey, especially for Noonan, who was the navigator. And one was that there were frequently inaccurate maps. And it's just because at the time, you know, we're getting to the point where people are flying and doing things so they're learning how far apart things actually are. And you know, if you're flying to these really remote areas, like one of these places we're going to talk about in a minute, it makes sense that like it would be hard for them to map out exactly how big an island is or that type of thing. So her next stop at this point was in Howland Island. It was 2,500 miles from lay. And it's an island that is a mile and a half long and half a mile wide. And she had to land on this island and find it. So what she did to prepare was she removed an essential items from the plane to adjust for additional fuel, which gave her 274 extra miles. And the US Guard Cutter, the Itasca, was their radio contact just offshore of the island. So they were supposed to contact the island as or the Itasca as they were getting close to kind of make sure they were safe and all those things. So there had been some bad weather, but they found out that there was going to be ideal conditions on July 2nd of 1937. So at 10 a.m. local time, however, it is zero Greenwich time and I'm just going to say we're going to stick with Greenwich time in case people are curious because that's kind of how the documents did it and I'm not sure why, but they took off at zero or midnight and they flew into overcast skies and rain showers despite these ideal conditions around what would have been five, six a.m. she called in reporting cloudy weather cloudy. The Itasca then sent them a steady stream of transmission. She could not hear and hers were fair or interrupted completely with static. Wow. At 742 they picked up the message, we must be on you, but we cannot see you. Fuel is running low, but unable to reach you by radio. We are flying 1000 feet. The ship tried to reply, but Amelia did not show that she could understand or respond. At 845 she reported we are running north and south and nothing further was heard. So immediately there was a rescue attempt made by the US government and it became the most expensive air and sea search and naval history, but after spending $4 million and scouring 250,000 square miles, the government called off the operation on July 19th. So about 17 days later. The following year a lighthouse was built on Howlin Island to honor her and her hometown at Shenzhen, Kansas has become a virtual shrine to her. She's also named after many airport streets, buildings and things. And honestly, there's no concrete evidence of the plane of their death that was ever discovered or conclusively discovered. And they even did sonar mapping of the ocean floor, which did not find evidence of a crash. Okay. So, but I mean, that's what most people suspect is that she just had some kind of accident with the weather and everything. That's the most believed theory. Well, but it's hard, you know, because even though that's the theory that makes the most sense, it's hard if they couldn't find any evidence of it. Yeah. Yep. And so we're going to get into some theories as to what could have happened. Okay. So like you said, most historians believe her plane crashed and she sank into the Pacific. This is mostly due to the many calls to the Itasca. A lot of people have done calculations and believe that if she was flying at a thousand feet, that's really low. And so she would have been burning more fuel. There's all sorts of things. So some believe that she was a spy in or she was a spy for the U.S. government and what they believe that they were doing was FDR wanted her to spy on the Japanese because again, this is leading up to World War II. And so he she was to kind of investigate the islands, but the belief is that they were either shot down or forced to land and that if she couldn't land at howling island, she was to ditch the plan at the Marshall Islands and get help. But in that process, she was apprehended. And for decades after they disappeared, islanders in the Marshall Islands did say that they saw the plane crash. So that is interesting because I believe it said that the Marshall Islands was like us. I want to say like 200 miles, I have it somewhere in my notes. I think they said it was about 200 miles. So she would have gone way off course if that was where she was going. And a kind of fun theory with that is a lot of people believe that maybe she was released or freed from the Japanese or she was apprehended by the U.S. government something and she moved to New Jersey, got married and took up the identity of Irene Craig mile Bolem. This was even popular popularized in a book called Amelia Earhart Lives in 1970. Okay. Joe class, the author claimed that she survived the cash, crash was captured by the Japanese and rescued by U.S. forces. So she was repatriated to New Jersey as part of the witness protection program. So but they would have done that because they didn't want people to know that she was a woman. Yes. Okay. No better for her to disappear than, you know, be revealed as a spy. And something interesting with that is that most people don't believe this is true just because Irene Bolem did submit an affidavit claiming this to be untrue and she like heavily heavily disputed these claims and Miss Irene passed away in 1982 so we'll never really know but I thought that was a fun theory. Yeah. Another one was that maybe she was Tokyo Rose. Now Tokyo Rose was how female English speaking radio broadcasters were referred to around this time. So these radio broadcasters would recite Japanese propaganda. And so a lot of people were like, Hey, there's a girl, you know, speaking English over in Japan. So Earhart's husband actually did investigate this matter personally and did not believe it was her voice but I don't know if he actually went to Japan or anything like that. But he did investigate and said he doesn't think it was her. But those were coming out after she went missing. Yes. Oh, okay. So I think I think they thought maybe she was working for the Japanese government, maybe forced to work for the government, something like that and was reciting this propaganda. Yeah. But I mean, I would, I think the husband would probably not her voice, you know, so he says it's not her. That's what I would think. Yeah. But another theory is that they made an emergency landing on the Kamuroro Reef, which was a small island kind of near Howland Island, um, about a year after the, uh, the disappearance and for right, oh my goodness, improvised tools and bits of clothing were found. They also found a box for a sextant and then there was an investor, the guy who kind of found everything, Gerald Gallagher, also found a partial human skeleton. Oh, okay. So at the time, uh, the medical examiner said it was probably a man who was short stock and a European descent, which they believed was not a match for Air Harder Noonan. Yeah. However, this examiner discarded the bones. So I think based on photos of the bones and things, scientists nowadays have looked at it and said it could have been a taller than average woman and Air Hard didn't have any children. So, you know, it would have been harder to tell the difference between a male or a female skeleton. Yeah. And she was apparently taller, a taller woman. And so the idea was that it could have been a taller woman or a short man was kind of like what their theory was. Yeah. Um, and the reason why, you know, it's like, and I totally get it like back then, they didn't know DNA was going to be a thing or any of that stuff. But, you know, I love when I hear stories where, you know, uh, you know, whether it's a coroner or somebody is like, you know, I know we can't do anything with this now, but I'm going to keep it just in case. You know, like I'm going to swab this puddle a spit. Yeah. That happened. You know, I'm going to freeze these things or keep these bones or whatever, and I really wish that they would have kept it. It would be interesting to see if that was her. Right. And so another theory with this is that the reason why only one skeleton was found was maybe one of them either perished in the crash or potentially, I guess, there are these crabs on the island called coconut crabs that grow to be very, very large. And these crabs have been known to take bones and like eat the flesh off bones and like things of small animals could also be a human if they were decomposing. So the theory is maybe the crabs took and ate their bodies or parts of their bodies because even like I said, this was a partial skeleton. So it wasn't even fully intact. Okay. The coconut crabs. I don't know, man, but I do think it's interesting. Ron Jalupski of Tigar also did a kind of investigation of the island. And he found a photograph of potential landing gear that was near the island sticking out of the water near the island. The week after the disappearance, he thought it could have been like a wheel or something, but it was an old photo blurry, hard to tell. Okay. But something else he found was a rubber shoe that, or like the sole of a shoe that matched the brand of shoe she was wearing, but it was a size too large for her. So they were like, maybe Noonan had the same shoes or maybe it's someone else's shoes, but it's interesting they're the same brand that he or her was wearing. They also found a 19 by 23 inch piece of aluminum, which they believed could be part of a plane, however, plane experts and even an electric expert did not believe that this was most likely a part of her specific plane, like could have been part of a plane, but not this plane. Okay. Also a flyover of the island week, a week after the crash reported nothing. They didn't see anything on the island. So you never know. I mean, if they were already perished or, you know, who knows, but I do think it's interesting nothing was seen on the island. However, one electric expert said that they could have radioed for a week if the plane had crashed as long as it wasn't underwater. And so the following week after, of course, millions of people were coming in saying, I have transmissions from Amelia Earhart, but there's one that a lot of people think maybe the US government should have paid attention to. Okay. And it was an operator named Betty Clank, who intercepted it. And she got a transmission saying, this is Amelia Earhart, help me. And then in the background, there was a male voice saying, waters deep or waters need deep, let me out, which, you know, if they were trying to do the thing before it got submerged, who knows. Yeah, but I mean, if you have a transmission that says this is American, Amelia Earhart, help me. And then somebody saying the waters need deep. Yeah, I think they should pay attention to that. Exactly. And, you know, a lot of people think, well, if she had intercepted this, wouldn't they have seen the plane or, you know, something, and something else is that all of these transmissions did coincide with low tide. So it would have worked had they, or like the timing would have worked if they were trying to radio when the radio wasn't underwater. So that is something to note as well. And to me, I'm like, I mean, it's wild that it got lost in the shuffle, but that seems credible to me that like Amelia and a male voice was like reacting to it. Yeah. So I don't know. But the last theory kind of similar to the spy theory is that they were captured by Japanese forces. If they had flown off course and gone into the Marshall Islands at the time they were under Japanese control and the Japanese and the US were not that friendly. So they believe that maybe they got somewhere within South Japanese Pacific mandate and they were captured and executed. Oh, wow. Like I said, many people think the distance between Hellen Island and the Marshall Islands is too far, but you know, they did have that extra fuel. They were clearly having trouble finding the island something could have happened. And there was a photo that at the time circulated that seemed to resemble her and noon in on a dock in the Marshall Islands. However, in 2018, some web sleuths figured out that the photo was actually in a history book in 1935. So it was completely discreet. Yeah. Yeah. I remember hearing that some similar to. Yeah. Yeah. But a lot of people thought it was them. So, you know, maybe they were in Asia as I'm going, I don't know, but that is interesting. And that being said, the Japanese government has no record of them being in their custody. And who knows? Because again, at the time, record keeping was different. And maybe if they were spies or something, it was kept under wraps, who knows, but I feel like the being captured by the Japanese seems unlikely to me. Yeah. But you know, like I said, Amelia really left her mark on the world. And I just wanted to kind of give her her due. So I want to end with a quote from a letter she wrote to her husband, George, in case a dangerous flight would be her last, which said, please, now I am quite aware of the hazards. I want to do it because I want to do it. One must try things, as men have tried, when they fail, their failure must be a challenge to others. And that is the story of the disappearance of Amelia Earhart. Okay. I love that. I totally want to end on that, like I'm shocked that there's no alien, alien theories. You know, there is alien theories. I did not include it because the main theory is just people be like, maybe she was abducted by aliens. I will say Star Trek had fun with that one. They did an episode where they found her. So really? They did. Well, I totally didn't know that. That's funny. But I feel like anytime somebody goes missing or playing, you know, like, they can find the plane. I totally feel like there's got to be people saying, oh, it's aliens that took the whole plane. Exactly. So yeah, that it. I mean, like I said, that is a theory. Yeah. I just didn't include it because there wasn't much more other than aliens. Because most most theories about aliens are pretty much just aliens. Yeah. Yeah. That's funny though, but I loved it. Yeah. I loved it. She wanted to like, you know, even if it put her at risk, but like wanting to like trailblazed and set the scene for other women to come follow her and do what she did. And yeah, I think that's very cool. Well, I think it's really amazing that, you know, like I said, like she's so many schools and airports and their scholarships named after her. I mean, she has really made an impact on the US at least and I'm sure around the world for aviation. And so I just wanted to cover her story and I know it's a short one, but, you know, I thought it was a good break from the murder. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm doing a lighter one next week too. So cool. Yeah. Even a little light because last month was a little heavy. Last month was a little heavy. That's kind of how I felt. I'm trying to get my stories a bit more upbeat for a little. Yeah. But our cake will be a little lighter, a little more fun too. So that would be good. Yes, I agree. So stay tuned for that friends because it also has things to do with aviation. Yeah. But I guess we can just get in a housekeeping. I know this was a short one. I just, I love this story. So if you want to follow us on Instagram, you could do that with the ill pod. If you have any, you know, personal stories or anything you want to share with us, you can either DM us or email us at what the ill pod at gmail.com. We have a super fun Patreon episode coming out for you this month. So please take a listen and you can just go on Patreon and search what the ill pod were right there. But outside of that, I just want to say I appreciate you, mama. I appreciate you, baby. And we appreciate you friends. I look forward to seeing you in Vegas. Vegas, baby. Bye. Bye. Bye. (laughs)